Storms Texas

Tropical Storm Dean whipped the Texas coast with 45-m.p.h. winds and much-needed rain Sunday after picking up some punch in the Gulf of Mexico. Dean later was downgraded to a tropical depression when its winds dropped below 39 m.p.h. The storm spawned at least one tornado in Cameron Parish, La., in the southwestern part of the state, authorities said. No damage was immediately reported.

Even by Texas standards the dark, dense, 8,000-foot-high behemoth of a dust storm that enveloped Lubbock had folks making comparisons Tuesday to the great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. It was "Steinbeck-ish in its arrival," said 71-year-old Paul Beane, a Lubbock city councilman, who watched the storm roll in Monday evening from his front porch. "I expected at any moment to see a line of Model Ts coming through headed to California. It really did look like pictures I had seen of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Violent thunderstorms roared across northern Texas for the second time in two weeks Wednesday, flooding roads, forcing scores to evacuate and killing three people. Some areas got up to 7 inches of rain in 24 hours. Forecasters said the heavy rain and flooding would continue through this morning. The storms snarled traffic throughout the Dallas-Ft. Worth area late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

Tropical Storm Edouard was expected to strengthen to a near-hurricane before making landfall somewhere in Texas on Tuesday. The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for the coasts of western Louisiana and eastern Texas, meaning that hurricane conditions were possible in the next 24 hours. Edouard is the fifth tropical storm of the 2008 hurricane season.

Tornadoes skipped through the Dallas area on Sunday, striking and shutting down a hospital, destroying homes and killing at least one person. At least 60 others were injured. Tornadoes touched down in Wylie, Sachse, Terrell, Forney and Lake Lavon in northeast Texas, the National Weather Service said. Hardest hit was Wylie, 25 miles northeast of Dallas, where the tornado cut through the town's business center and hit Physicians Regional Hospital.

Transformed from a lashing hurricane to a sullen, roaming deluge, Tropical Storm Bret dumped more than 25 inches of rain in South Texas and kept thousands from their homes Monday as it made its way slowly west-northwest toward Mexico. The biggest hurricane to strike the state in two decades, Bret spent much of its strength inundating a vast South Texas ranch. The storm also spawned a tornado that demolished a mobile home between Rockport and Aransas Pass.

Authorities ended the search Thursday for 23 people who had been unaccounted for after a devastating tornado, concluding that those considered missing had turned up alive or were among the unidentified bodies. Residents of this central Texas town returned to what's left of their homes, still grieving over the deaths of 27 neighbors but thankful that the toll wasn't higher.

A storm that killed at least nine people moved eastward Friday, dumping record snowfall on the northern Plains and inflicting bone-chilling cold as far south as Texas. Snow fell for the fourth consecutive day in Bismarck, N.D., adding to the two feet of snow already on the ground, a record for a single snowstorm. "It's still snowing here, but there's hardly any wind," said Shirley Borg of the city coordinator's office in Bismarck.

A downtown department store in this border city collapsed during a torrential rainstorm Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 40 others, officials said. And as night fell, hundreds of volunteers worked to sift their way through the dense pile of rubble, searching for those who might still be alive beneath the wreckage. Sgt. Dean Poos, a spokesman for the Brownsville Police Department, said he believed the death toll could climb to as high as 20.

As a longtime Houston-area resident, Beanie Rowland is something of a mosquito expert. But nothing prepared her for the swarms that descended on her rural home after Tropical Storm Allison. "These aren't ordinary mosquitoes," she said. "These are terrible. . . . You think they might come and carry you away." For weeks, people along the Gulf Coast have been living in misery as mosquitoes have hatched by the millions in flood waters left by the storm.

A tornado blew through a small Central Texas community Saturday, damaging houses and injuring at least four people, authorities said. The storm cut a wide swath east of Thornton, said Aubrey Briggs, mayor pro tem of the city of about 500 people about 35 miles east of Waco. "It missed the city. It was pretty widespread and pretty destructive," Briggs said. "My sister-in-law saw it. She said it was just a red cloud. It must have been sucking dirt out of the ground."

The deadly storms that battered Texas caused widespread flooding and tornado damage, but the effect was not all negative. The region's stricken water supplies have been dramatically boosted. "When we have rain like this, it's good news for us," said Margaret Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Edwards Aquifer Authority. "It means the aquifer will go up and be healthy when we start the new year." San Antonio relies entirely on the Edwards Aquifer for its water.

Storms packing heavy rain and tornadoes swept through Central Texas on Thursday and were blamed for the deaths of at least three people whose vehicles were swept from roads by flood waters. About 15,000 homes lost power in Austin, rains flooded businesses in a downtown area and cars were left strewn about as waters receded. Portions of Interstate 35 near Buda were backed up after an 18-wheeler overturned. Street flooding also was reported in San Antonio.

As a longtime Houston-area resident, Beanie Rowland is something of a mosquito expert. But nothing prepared her for the swarms that descended on her rural home after Tropical Storm Allison. "These aren't ordinary mosquitoes," she said. "These are terrible. . . . You think they might come and carry you away." For weeks, people along the Gulf Coast have been living in misery as mosquitoes have hatched by the millions in flood waters left by the storm.

Tetanus worries, hordes of mosquitoes and well water contaminated with E. coli spurred health officials to action in the watery aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison. So far, potential outbreaks have been avoided. The city health department had administered 7,800 tetanus shots to residents with wounds who trudged through flood waters contaminated with sewage. Mosquitoes, whose populations boomed in the watery stew, can spread encephalitis and other viruses to humans.

Tropical Storm Allison, which killed at least 18 people in Texas and Louisiana, may also have had a serious effect on medical research. Flooding at the Texas Medical Center south of Houston killed at least 32,500 research animals, mostly mice and rats. Their loss, along with the destruction of scientific records and lab specimens, will put a big dent in international medical research, said Dr. Ralph D. Feigin, president of the Baylor College of Medicine.

Lashing winds Thursday damaged the altar built for Pope John Paul II's scheduled appearance and toppled twin 12-story metal towers skirting the stage, authorities said. "It looks like a twisted hunk of metal out there," said Richard Hemberger, a spokesman for the San Antonio archdiocese. No one was injured in the collapse, he said. Hemberger said the towers cannot be rebuilt in time for the Mass Sunday.

Thunderstorms moved through North Texas with winds up to 70 mph Friday, causing damage estimated in the millions of dollars at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Three people died in traffic accidents. A 16-year-old girl died when her car hydroplaned on Texas 155 near Tyler and skidded into an 18-wheeler, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

They worked all night and all day in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers, pumping pools of filthy flood water from beneath the concrete heart of downtown even as clearing skies unmasked a broiling sun. Banks, hospitals and office buildings remained dark and empty Monday, water sloshing in the deep underground complexes below. In the end, it was the basements that crippled this city of swamps, bayous and gulf storms.

They found them tangled in trees and trapped in water-logged cars. Death turned up in gutters and in basements. By Sunday afternoon, there were 18 bodies in all, and officials dreaded more lurked undiscovered in these streets. The milky waters that brought the nation's fourth-largest city to its knees this weekend drained away slowly Sunday. As a soggy and stinking town reemerged, estimates of the damage suffered by homes and business soared to $1 billion.